With so much information to consume and such little time, to grab the attention of prospects long enough to showcase your value, cutting through the noise is essential. But, doing so can prove easier said than done.

When it comes to sparking the interest of your target audience, grabbing their attention and encouraging interaction, contest marketing is a powerful promotional tool.

On average, brands boost their fanbase by an average of 34% through social media-based contest marketing campaigns. Moreover, 30% of contest participants sign up to receive content or info from the brand responsible for the giveaway.

High-quality promotional products make effective brand storytelling tools while offering invaluable incentives to enter or interacted with a contest or giveaway.

When it comes to contest marketing, the sky’s the limit. You can use a wealth of channels or touchpoints to promote your contests and there are countless engagement tactics you can leverage to encourage participation.

To put the power of using promotional products for branded contests or giveaways into living, breathing perspective, here are three shining examples of contest marketing that you need to know about.

Twitter On the Subway

Photo by Micah Martello | Twitter

While this particular campaign doesn’t involve promotional products in a tangible sense, its sheer creativity is a testament to the power contest marketing, done right.

Launched in New York and San Francisco, social media giant Twitter invited its users to share an amusing meme based on the concept of “Me on Twitter”. And, it resulted in gems like this:

Photo by Tina | Twitter

The incentive was city-wide exposure: the top 28 memes were featured loud and proud on the New York on San Fran subway, with the participants responsible for the Tweets exclusively followed by Twitter for a limited period.

This forward-thinking contest marketing concept earned enormous levels of engagement, showcasing Twitter’s fun, quirky side while highlighting the features that set the platform apart from its direct competitors.

Naturally, the incentive here was the prospect of having your Tweet plastered over a subway wall for all to see, but you could use this framework to give away promotional products. Brand exposure and social media growth in one neat promotional package.

LinkedIn’s ‘In It Together’ Campaign

Photo By Leon Nauta | LinkedIn

As part of its successful integrated marketing campaign, LinkedIn earned a great deal of engagement with a simple yet potent feat of contest-based marketing.

To congratulate members on new jobs or career milestones, LinkedIn sent out personalised packages featuring a handwritten message and high-quality branded products to use in the workplace:

Photo By Ryan Berry | LinkedIn

An intimate approach coupled with top-quality branding earned LinkedIn an enormous level of user engagement (the average campaign post yielding thousands of reactions), using its own social feed to plug and promote its efforts. To date, the response has been more than positive—with LinkedIn members showing their gratitude with messages of thanks, including this from Phoenix Suns’ Chad Haines:

"LinkedIn reached out to me and congratulated me on my new job.

They told me they wanted to send me a gift. Hesitant to believe this was true I took a couple of days to respond. After doing a little research I found out this was not a spam. Thank you LinkedIn for the generous gift, your platform has been a great resource for me thus far in my career!"

A testament to the power of personal messaging and the right promotional products.

Forever 21’s LA Gear Instagram Collaboration

Retailer Forever 21 know their audience inside-out. With content, messaging, and promotions targeted at specific segments of their core demographic, Forever21 is a brand with formidable marketing abilities—and this Instagram giveaway is no exception.

Based on the understanding that consumers that grew up in the 80s or 90s would have worn and cherished LA Gear, the two brands teamed up to launch a competition to win some top-notch swag, including a pair of iconic LA Lights sneakers.

The competition model was simple yet effective (as you can see, the original post alone earned over 250,000 views): leave a comment including your favourite movie from the 80s or 90s and tag two friends.

A cohesive collaboration that encouraged engagement by harnessing the power of nostalgia, this promotional giveaway proved a huge success for both brands. And, because the promotional product (or prize) offered direct value to its audience, the competition generated literally thousands of entries, almost overnight.

It’s clear that promotional product giveaways are one of today’s most potent marketing mediums. Know your audience, harness the right channels, offer a high-quality branded incentive, be creative—and the rest will surely follow.

If you need a remarkable promotional product for your next contest or giveaway, get in touch and we’ll help you create an incentive that will encourage people to sign up to enter left, right, and centre.

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Dan Hughes

Storyteller at 5By7. I am a content writer & author with a passion for tech, music, travel, and storytelling. I strive to offer unique value to readers through the power of words and you'll often find me with a pen in my hand or my head in a book.